Prof.
Ken Schoolland of Hawaii
Pacific University delivered the 2004 Julian L. Simon Memorial Lecture on
Jan 10, 2005, in New Delhi. The topic this year was immigration, and Prof
Schoolland said that “immigration is the sincerest form of flattery”. He
acknowledged that if the US was wealthier today, it was due in large part to
the creativity and efforts of immigrants, including Indians. He applauded
the courage of immigrants who left behind everything that was familiar to
chance the hostility of a completely alien culture only in order to find
freedom, opportunity and a better life. He also made an interesting
comparison of welfare data with immigration of both native-born and
foreign-born within the US, and showed that the states with higher welfare
benefits did not attract higher proportion of immigrants. The talk prompted
an exciting discussion, and its implications for India.

Dr.
P. S. Rana, CMD of Housing and Urban
Development Corporation, the largest public sector housing company, chairing
the lecture, agreed that from his experience, the claim that India cannot
sustain a growing urban population was false. There was no shortage of land,
only misguided policies that have restricted the availability of land for
housing and development, causing the growth of congestion and spread of
slums.

The
panel discussion following the lecture, chaired by Dr. Shubhashis
Gangopadhyay of India Development Foundation, was aimed at looking at
some of the issues of immigration in the Indian context. Dr. Abusaleh
Sharif, chief economist at National Council for Applied Economics
Research in New Delhi, compared the costs and benefits of immigration,
internationally as well within India. He suggested that the native citizens
could be provided some special privileges in areas like natural resource
allocation or certain types of low skill jobs.

Prof.
Binod Khadria of Zakir Husain Centre
for Educational Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, suggested the need for
a more systematic assessment of cost and benefit, real and potential, of
international migration. He cautioned that gains of today, might impose
costs in the longer term.

Dr.
Chetan Ghate of Indian Statistical
Institute in New Delhi, said that increasing urbanization and technological
progress provided increase opportunity to immigrants seeking to benefit from
productivity gains. He argued that gains from movement of labour were far
greater today than that due to movement of goods and capital. He pointed out
that real wages in US has increased six-fold over the past century, as
population moved away from rural and agriculture based activities to more
productive economic activities, first in manufacturing and then in services.
He suggested generational accounting to take in to account the fact that
young and recent migrants generally start out poorer.

Dr
Gangopadhyay concluded that rather than worrying about the hazards of
immigration, we would do well to focus on the factors that influence people
to migrate seeking better opportunities elsewhere, and try to remove those
constraints that hinder economic opportunities.

Earlier
Dr. Rana also released the Indian edition of Ken Schoolland’s
internationally popular book “The Adventures of Jonathan Gullible: A
Free Market Odyssey”. The book was published in collaboration with
Academic Foundation. The event ended with a luncheon hosted by the Institute

The
memorial lecture series have been instituted by Liberty Institute, an
independent think tank, to celebrate human potential and achievement, which
form the core of much of the late Professor Julian Simon’s research and
work. Prof. Simon was an economist and demographer at the University of
Maryland at College Park, just outside Washington DC. This year also marks
the 25th anniversary of Prof. Simon’s landmark book “The
Ultimate Resource”. Liberty Institute seeks to build understanding
and appreciation of the four institutional pillars of a free society:
individual rights, rule of law, limited government and free markets.